Лучшие романы Томаса Майна Рида / The Best of Thomas Mayne Reid

) bright blue (usually about the sky)] is seen the imperfect centaurean[9 - centaurean – from centaur – in Greek mythology, a strange creature, half man and half horse] shape gradually dissolving in the distance, till it becomes lost to view, under the mystic gloaming of the moonlight!

Chapter 1

The Burnt Prairie

On the great plain of Texas, about a hundred miles southward from the old Spanish town of San Antonio de Bejar[10 - San Antonio de Bejar – the city in south-central Texas; it was founded by the Spanish expedition from Mexico in 1718], the noonday sun is shedding his beams from a sky of cerulean brightness.

Under the golden light appears aВ group of objects, but little in unison with the landscape around them: since they betoken the presence of human beings, in aВ spot where there is no sign of human habitation.

The objects in question are easily identified – even at a great distance. They are waggons; each covered with its ribbed and rounded tilt of snow-white “Osnaburgh[11 - Osnaburgh – a linen cloth of a certain trademark].

”

There are ten of them – scarce enough to constitute a “caravan” of traders, nor yet a “government train.” They are more likely the individual property of an emigrant; who has landed upon the coast, and is wending his way to one of the late-formed settlements on the Leona.

Slowly crawling across the savannah, it could scarce be told that they are in motion; but for their relative-position, in long serried line, indicating the order of march.

The dark bodies between each two declare that the teams are attached; and that they are making progress is proved, by the retreating antelope, scared from its noonday siesta, and the long-shanked curlew, rising with a screech from the sward – both bird and beast wondering at the string of strange behemoths, thus invading their wilderness domain.

Elsewhere upon the prairie, no movement may be detected – either of bird or quadruped.

It is the time of day when all tropical life becomes torpid, or seeks repose in the shade; man alone, stimulated by the love of gain, or the promptings of ambition, disregarding the laws of nature, and defying the fervour of the sun.

So seems it with the owner of the tilted train; who, despite the relaxing influence of the fierce mid-day heat, keeps moving on.

That he is an emigrant – and not one of the ordinary class – is evidenced in a variety of ways.